Leesburg officials ask to be a permanent part of a regional transportation group

ALBANY — The city of Leesburg has, over the past several years, been the recipient of millions of dollars in funding for key projects listed on the Dougherty Area Regional Transportation Study Long-Range Transportation Plan. Leesburg officials asked Thursday morning to be accepted as a formal part of the group that devises and approves that plan.

Leesburg City Manager Bob Alexander asked the DARTS Policy Committee to accept Leesburg’s mayor, city manager and Public Works director as permanent members of the DARTS Technical Coordinating, Citizens Advisory and Policy committees.

DARTS currently comprises officials from Dougherty and Lee counties, the city of Albany and the state Department of Transportation.

“Leesburg has certainly benefited from Lee County’s participation in DARTS,” that city’s mayor, Jim Quinn, said after Thursday’s meeting at the downtown Albany government annex building. “We are a growing city, and we felt it would benefit us to be a part of the decision-making process.”

Alexander told the committee one of the projects from the DARTS long-range plan, the extension of the U.S. 19 North Bypass that will alleviate school traffic congestion downtown, would have an official groundbreaking May 8 that will bring Gov. Nathan Deal to the city.

“I can’t remember the last time Georgia’s governor came to Leesburg,” Alexander said.

Dougherty County Commission Chairman Jeff Sinyard recommended that the Policy Committee accept Alexander’s request, saying, “This just makes sense,” but Dougherty Administrator Richard Crowdis pointed out that the committee’s bylaws stipulate that a vote on the request be taken at its next meeting.

Transportation Planner Jennifer Newton pointed out that, with Leesburg in the mix, its share of program funding would be 2.4 percent, which amounts to $826 per year. Other percentages are Lee County, 19 percent ($6,500), Albany, 64 percent ($22,000), and Dougherty County, 14.2 percent ($4,900).

The Policy Committee did vote Thursday to extend the boundary of the DARTS Metropolotan Planning Organization to include a small (roughly 2 acres) sliver of land in Lee County currently located outside the MPO boundary. That land has been listed as part of the MPO’s “urbanized area,” which must fall within the boundary.

The Policy Committee also got an update on its 2040 long-range transportation plan, which must be completed by the end of the year. Eric Lusher with transportation consulting firm URS Corporation of Atlanta gave the committee a rough timeline for approving the 30-year plan, including: preparing a draft of the plan and conducting one-on-one interviews with stakeholders April-June; holding an initial public meeting in mid-June; developing the plan June-September; holding a public meeting and implementing a 30-day comment period in mid-September; refining the plan in October and November, and approving a final draft of the plan in December.

“What we’ll need to laser-focus on is making sure we approve a plan by December,” Lusher said. “If we don’t, we have a problem. We could lose funding.

“There’s no reason to reinvent the wheel here. We just have to always keep in mind that projects not in the Long-Range Transportation Plan can’t receive federal funding.”

GDOT District Engineer Joe Sheffield, who works out of the department’s Tifton office, asked Lusher a pointed question about funding DARTS projects.

“In terms of funding, what crystal ball are you using?” Sheffield asked. “Because there is no information available at this time about available transportation funds.”

Lusher replied, “We’ll take into account past funding and issues like inflation. It really is a ‘crystal-ball’ guess, but the key is reasonability. We have to work with reasonable figures, not come out with something that says DARTS is going to get $5 billion in a given year.”